Transcript: Probable Cause with Sibel Edmonds – Buckle-Up & Join the Ride: Our New Media Project is on Its Way!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 26th episode of Probable Cause. This is going to be a brief update on where I’ve been, what we’ve been doing, where we’re headed, and why.

In September and October we had an intense campaign on the Real Dennis Hastert Case. As expected, our forecasting was spot on. As expected, the mainstream and pseudo-alternative media channels unanimously blocked any real revelations in the real Hastert case. As expected, the criminal bastard and pedophile walked away from all his criminal deeds unscratched and with full-protection from the establishment media.

Now for some this whole deal may have been a real downer. Why wouldn’t it be? It is one of thousands of US political cases where we are reminded of the constant absence of accountability and justice.

How about me? Did I go through a down period? You bet. However, it was brief; very brief. The whole thing made me stop, think, reevaluate, and get back on my feet loaded with new plans, more drive, and higher aspirations. How is that for ‘when life gives you lemons make lemonade’?!

During our BFP roundtable session with James Corbett and Peter B. Collins I vaguely mentioned my new idea and plan to take our BFP site to the next step. Actually, I’d say taking it a few steps above and beyond where it stands today. I broadly and to a certain extent, vaguely, talked the talk during that episode. And, immediately after recording that session, I began walking the talk- intensely, nonstop and with a fierce drive I have not felt for a long time. And I’ve been at it since, and will be at it for the next few months.

Okay, so what is the objective? What are the plans? Let’s address the questions of what, why, who and how.

What

We are going to form and operate a participatory news and multimedia network created to redefine content-driven publishing through a publicly-funded platform. Our new media platform will provide original investigative news and stories, daily analyses and commentaries, and audio and video podcast productions on significant issues ignored and/or censored by existing media sources.

Unlike many existing online media models, we will abide by a strict code of journalistic integrity, made possible by being independent, advertisement-free, and by being solely publicly funded. Our investigative reports and multimedia productions will be completely nonpartisan, agenda-free, with content free to all subscribers.

We are going to establish a headquarters for our office, set-up a recording studio, have in-house IT operations, editors and managerial staff. We will employ full-time and part-time investigative journalists (National & International) with allocated research and travel funds. We are going to have in-house producers: we’ll produce daily news video-audio episodes, daily analyses, video-audio shows, and multiple political debate-discussion roundtables which will be available both in video and audio formats. Additionally we’ll have daily columns for articles, analyses and commentaries, and original editorial toons.

But wait, that’s not all. We are working on a section that will be dedicated to activism and communities, and in coordination with that 24 X 7 managed live forums for activist subscribers.

Why

While we have seen the rise of many alternative media sources, the stage has been overcrowded mainly by two categories: 1- A handful of well-funded entities whose funding comes from the same establishment they were set up to differ from (Mega Foundations & Corporations and Billionaire Sugar Daddies); 2- Thousands of singularly operated entities with limited resources, thus limited coverage and reach.

Currently there are numerous independent information sites in operation. While some produce high-quality informational material, all are limited by their lack of resources, time and visibility. From the viewers’ perspective, first it is very difficult just to discover and select from these independent sources, and then it is both tedious and time-consuming to visit, view and actively engage with each one.

Our media network will be an answer to both: 1- Truly independent from mainstream funding sources (No advertisement, no foundations, no partisan backing and no billionaire sugar-daddies); 2- A center stage, where the quality work products of stellar producers and seasoned independent journalists are produced and featured. Our media platform, by using its resources (from IT to editorial and social media management), will showcase these untapped quality productions on one visible, well-managed and hourly updated stage.

WHO

We have put in place our first-tier editors, journalists and producers with unmatched talent, reputations, experience and track records. In the next few weeks I will announce our first-tier associates and partners. We have world-wide-recognized independent investigative journalists; each with 25+ years of experience. We have talented and passionate producers for our video and podcast programs. We just brought on board our seasoned communication and PR specialist. And we have our first-tier analysts and authors with original and independent voices. We are still working on recruiting technical and managerial skills.

I know many of you are anxious to learn more. I know you want to know the names. I am not being a teaser. Really. I am just sticking with our agreed-upon schedule, so I appreciate your understanding and patience. With that said, rest assured our BFP family of producers and partners will remain with us in our new home.

How

We are planning to use a major crowdfunding campaign to raise the needed funds to set up, launch and become fully operational. The funds will be used for:

After this initial set-up stage, based on our established track record and viewers’ support, we will utilize two strategies to acquire funds to sustain and expand operations: 1-A nominal subscription fee for extra services and products such as weekly newsletters and participation in forums, exclusive monthly videos, and participation in weekly live conferences; 2- Bi-annual fundraising.

Those who have been searching for a truly independent alternative model, without having to compromise reliability, consistency and quality, are given this opportunity to make this a reality. They will commit to investing in and supporting this needed project without risk. If the crowdfunding campaign fails to reach its objective they will get their money back - 100%. If on the other hand, as we expect, this fundraising goal is achieved and the project becomes operational, they will get what they’ve never had: A truly independent and comprehensive alternative media network with integrity and high-quality content.

In the next few weeks I will have more, much more, for you. We’ll share our logo and new domain name with you. We’ll begin releasing the names and backgrounds of our first-tier partners. We’ll announce our key crowdfunding channels. And after that we’ll begin our intense activities while counting-down towards our crowdfunding launch date.

Meanwhile, we would love to hear from all of you. Are you excited about this truly ambitious goal? Do you support the concept? Will you join us in our campaign to raise awareness and activate other supporters? Do you have any suggestions and ideas? You know what I’m asking here: I want ‘YOU’ and ‘Your Ideas,’ and ‘Your’ support and participation.

With this initial announcement we are launching our support recruitment. Those of you who are interested in our objective, who would like to receive updates and join us in our campaign to raise awareness and activate other like-minded parties, please take a few seconds and fill out our form (with your privacy 100% guaranteed), and join our e-mail list. I’ll have the link posted with this episode at BFP.

Now it’s time to wrap up. Thank you for joining me on this special edition of Probable Cause. I am looking forward to your responses, questions and all your comments. Please fill out our form via the provided link and join our campaign. I’ll be back soon to pick up where we left off. So long; and until then.

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Sibel Edmonds is editor and publisher of BFP Report, founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), and author of the acclaimed book Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, and The Lone Gladio, a Political Spy Thriller. . She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. Ms. Edmonds is a certified linguist, fluent in four languages, and has an MA in public policy from George Mason University and a BA in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University.

This site depends….

Comments

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. The electorate in functioning democracies should be able to pay through their taxes for an independent public funded national broadcaster that speaks for the electorate and is accountable only to the electorate. The electorate could provide a degree of legal protection and immunity when the facts lead to the powerful in government, international corporations, deep state agencies, or military, police, or mercenary entities.

Unfortunately public funded national broadcasters BBC, CBC, etc do not speak for the electorate and are under the control of the partisan government and five eyes deep state entities.

As long as management and editing control is in the hands of government appointees, and secret government agencies, public broadcasters will not/can not speak for the electorate and cannot be the independent, democratic, accountable , transparent, investigative journalism the world’s democracies need.

It is my belief that Geopolitics on BBC and CBC (and goes without saying, all the main stream corporate media) is nothing but lies, propaganda, and brainwashing (very kind words to describe what they are doing).

Public funded national media in democracies could be free, and could be fixed, and could provide the needed secure funding and support for a free press. New enacting legislation where management is elected not appointed, (just like politicians), so they are accountable only to the electorate, speak only for the electorate and can be quickly thrown out if they are corrupt or loose independence.

Electorates could provide pubic broadcaster protection and immunity to investigate even when the story involves money , power, politics, secret government agency, federal, provincial or municipal law enforcement, etc etc.

An independent national broadcaster that speaks for the electorate would have a place for journalists like yourself and others and could also provide protection against the powerful forces who strike back when a light is shone on them.

Even a single well funded , reliable , independent , democratic , media source which speaks only for the electorate and is accountable only to the electorate would be a game changer.

Have you seen NPR’s funding page? Proves your point. 19% of their funding comes from Mega Corporations, including major MIC ones. Huh- and expectation for unbiased reporting when it comes to our wars of aggression??! Also, another 10% comes from billionaire-owned foundations (Rockefellers, Soros, etc.) … and 5+% from the criminal gov itself … oooooh, so ‘public’!!

so true! Researching these numbers right now for a blog post, thanks to a stupid CNN poll posted on the local TV news station website where the headline reads “Most want ground troops to fight ISIS” and the article claims 53% say the US should send troops to Iraq or Syria. All I could think as I read it was whether or not those polled were even asked who ISIS is and who/what might be responsible for their rise to power. Because I’m pretty sure they have no idea, since CNN (or any other MSM organization) doesn’t tell them. And, it got me wondering just who owns the local station.

This makes me think of something funny I read earlier this evening in Greg Palast’s fine book Vulture’s Picnic. He’s talking about how PBS, with our well-meaning donations adding to massive corporate funding, was complicit in the cover-up of BP’s role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and he writes:

“But the Public Broadcast System takes our tax money. It owes us something, no? If we can’t get the real story about Big Oil, at least we deserve an apology. I was waiting for the PBS Frontline reporter to say, ‘BP has kept the truth locked in its files for years – and so have we at PBS AND WE ARE ASHAMED. Send us back your Ken Burns DVDs for a refund.’ But no, they didn’t apologize; they asked for more money! And we will send it, leveraging Chevron’s and ExxonMobil’s payola. As P. T. Barnum once said, there’s a PBS donor born every minute.”

Um, we cant even get the psychopaths and fitopaths out of offices in which they influence the aiming of nuclear weapons. How would we vote them out of a position where all they control is yapping on a screen?

In Canada we pay billions every year for CBC but the enacting legislation has executive and editing management appointed directly from the Prime Ministers Office. In addition there is levers of control for sensitive information and national security issues at the deep state level. They have control right at the editing level.

Don’t see why that has to be. Electorate pays the bills , why not have the electorate choose the directing , editorial , management . Chosen by the electorate, thrown out by the electorate if corrupted or independence compromised. A public funded media, responsible only to the electorate could be given legal protection and immunity by the electorate to ensure that issues involving corruption with powerful forces in government, corporate, or deep state could be pursued with some protection and support.

I know such a model does not exist but I see no reason why it could not be done except that very powerful forces would fight against it in every way. It would change everything and would be crown funding in a big way.

It’s great to hear a three-way dialogue on often unspoken subjects. Anarchism principals and ideals are most appealing to me. I suggest anarchism is not held out as a way to organize a politic, it’s rather a set of ideas that may be used as guidelines for organizing politics. Very much in the spirit of ideals expressed in your dialogue, anarchism respects fairness, independence, and individual contribution. And, there is nothing in my reading of anarchism that disallows a collaboration, syndicate, or organization. What is disallowed is not even leadership, if it is fair and allows for revolutionary change from below. As an anarchist, I can participate in direct democracy, socialism, participatory democracy, even participate in a fascist state voting. I don’t buy that every time I vote I’m giving homage to the state. An anarchist may be mercenary for short term gain. Why limit the tools in the toolbox unless they sabotage the possibility of greater liberty? The Bill of Rights was at inception anarchist, as was an independent judiciary, etc.

“This relativity of the anarchist principle to the actual situation is of the essence of anarchism. There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called “anarchist.” It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost, and.” —“Reflections on the Anarchist Principal”, by Paul Goodman

On to substance. The question, “what are we going to do about it” on heals of discussion of Hastert, is more than challenging in breadth. Let’s distinguish competing goals and motivations. Presented ideas were diverse, some standing in contrast if not opposition, many were vague and yet to be flushed out.
Competing ideas: 1) activism to change the present state of affairs; 2) investigative journalism; 3) mass appeal aka “salad bowl”, variation of opinion; and 4) high quality critical thinking, dense material. And: 1a) not top down; 2a) editorial oversight.

To simplify: 2 is a subset of 1. In other words, investigative journalism is one form of activism. Being devil’s advocate I ask, to what end? Is it a means or end? As an irate minority, change is desired, and knowledge is perhaps measured by emerging praxis. Thinking about things is a good start.

4 will never be fully 3. In other words, critical dense material is not of mass appeal.
4 may foment profound change in 3 at zeitgeist shift. In other words, critical dense material, simply interpreted, and mediated can result in mass cultural / consciousness shift.

2a is in conflict with 1a. In other words, editorial oversight is top down. That doesn’t automatically mean it’s not fair or anarchistic. For example, climate change is of crucial concern. To reject it out of hand is editorial decision from top. How could an organization protect from biased guidance – impossible. However, biases, and editorial decisions, may be shared fairly while somehow allowing anarchy, that is, change from below.
At first blush, the idea of a collaborative site for investigative journalism, housing many of the best contributions, is exciting. On the downside are some examples of successful operations, e.g., Huffpost. and Infowars. Neither are completely devoted to investigative journalism as say projectcensored.org — a better example. But the former have mass appeal, though not dense with critical thinking. I’ve bookmarked Alternet, and Znet for a long time. Still refer to them periodically. Znet is a great “far-left” disappointment by 9/11 denial; nevertheless, has some dense excellent articles. There are many similar sites, e.g., Truthout.org. Would a “higher level” of cogent content with various levels of density have mass appeal? I doubt it. Can’t be all things to all people. Video has mass appeal, but doesn’t lend itself well to complicated dense material, that is, without a large budget.

Consider Pateron as a possible platform. And, naturally articulate smart goals as this community evolves.

Media mediates consciousness and this is one power or opportunity that communities such as yours/ours have of wielding influence. There’s a danger in being too niche. Dense material is for intelligentsia — who have their own responsibility — critical thinking is (hopefully) for everyone. How would a collaborative effort most inspire change of perspective to a viral degree? Seems sites with video have mass appeal, Wearechange.org and Submedia.tv are unique contributions. To wed dense incisive anarchic creativity with a systematic presentation attractive to the masses is certainly ambitious. Providing historical perspective, which each of you are at pains to do, becomes more and more challenging while attention spans are decreasing.

Numerous street level actions might benefit from Deep State understanding emerging from shared her-story and we may find ways to align our power to everyone’s benefit. Popularresistance.org has a similar project to the one being contemplated, but it’s about specific on the ground activism. Wish there were an easy way to show relevance of 9/11, Hastert, and political assassinations to current activists, but I’ve not discovered it yet. Better, perhaps, to look for opportunities to agree than disagree with those seeking revolution. This is my preferred attitude toward James’ global warming (or is it climate change, or seriousness) denial. There’s so many things to seek and discover by way of a deeper, denser investigation.

What is the disjunction between knowing, speaking, and action? After all, it will ultimately be action that consummates community. We’ve suffered a loss of commons. Social networking has promise. Still, there is nothing like face to face. Having dialogue in the commentary section on BFP has been challenging and friendly, creating a sense of community to some extent. So has the commentary sections of commondreams.org but these often leave a sense of dissatisfaction too.

Seeking a larger online venue with greater mass appeal will likely diminish a sense of personal relevance (if not intimacy) and may make team work less achievable for those on the other side of the screen. Video conferencing offers possibilities. How challenging, to stay up with all the unfolding revelations day by day. It would be even more demanding if attempting to use all media alternatives possible, but that would likely have the widest appeal. And, again, to what end? Being a news junkie, history buff, and erstwhile political voyeur has its own rewards, but doesn’t necessarily get me out of my comfort range collaborating with my circle of influence.

In sum, I like the ideas presented so far and think the method and objectives can use refinement. I hope this is helpful

Tried to find video conference (on the new project), not wanting to misquote. Unfortunately didn’t find. You said something like “‘climate change’ would not be a topic.” Correction appreciated.

I hope to participate constructively. If in no other way than gadfly. You said something about “not top down.” You will either allow conversation (from the bottom up) about whatever, e.g. ‘climate change’, or not. It’s not possible to have a “bottom up” and decline to address climate or whatever “bottom” wants to address.

Allow me a moment. To elide global ecological crisis with sole focus on Deep State perfidy is short sighted. Not because of the perfidy, but because larger things have been wrought. And, people on ground are activated by what moves them. Do you not feel it? Revolution happens from underneath. Otherwise it’s a coup. $#revolutions are happening in the streets now. It’s our responsibility as intellectuals and historians to catch them up and connect dots. The largest environmental polluter is (wanna guess) US military. Why would we not help people in the streets connect dots?

Off-topic question again, I don’t know where to ask them otherwise:
You once said that Turkish generals can’t go to the loo without asking Washington’s permission. What’s you’re take on the invasion of Cyprus? That was an attack against another NATO country right? Did the Pentagon support it? publicly? Privately? Why? Any documentary evidence available?

Looking forward to this as we head into the new year! With the election double-speak season coming up, this site will be a much needed catalyst for truth. I plan on supporting this as much as I can, financially as well as hopefully volunteering in any capacity I can.

And as an IT/Web Developer myself, have you thought about going open source with the IT department/WebDev front? It could significantly reduce the amount of capital you need to get up and running and could turn into an ‘alt-media’ phenomena. 20 somethings like myself would line up to build functionality as the site matures so only a small team of technical activist would be necessary to retain full time to coordinate continuous improvements. It’d be something if both a technical as well as a journalistic revolution occurred because of your work here. Catalyst may be a great word for this indeed.

‘Public’ radio at its finest. If anyone has any doubt at all that the Zionist machine doesn’t own all levels of media feel free to contact me. I have the entire thing mapped out on a massive chart in my room. And if there should be one media group or effort that is not controlled and owned, it simply means the Zios are about to co-opt it or are monitoring it for their own reasons.

Defense. Are in Our Numbers.
The More. We Are.
From all around, this World..
That We Share…We Can do it.
It is also My problem..
Coming from another country..( Denmark ).
Into this Forum…
Best Regards Marsh Collins
Jens.